Privacy Policy

The Florida Press(“we”, “us”, “our”) operates the website at thefloridapress.com(the “Site”). This policy explains what personal information we collect when you visit or interact with the Site, how we use and disclose it, how long we keep it, and the rights you have under applicable U.S. privacy laws — including the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CCPA/CPRA), and the rights granted to Florida residents under Florida statute. The policy is designed to serve as a single, plain-English statement of how this site handles your data regardless of which state you live in.

We aim to collect the minimum personal information needed to publish the Site, respond to readers, and operate the basic features below. If you do not agree with any part of this policy, please do not use the Site.

1. Who is responsible for your data

The controller (business) responsible for personal information collected through the Site is The Florida Press, reachable at privacy@thefloridapress.com or by mail at:

2. Information we collect

2.1 Information you provide directly

• Contact form: name, email address, subject line, and the message body when you submit our contact form.
• News tips: any information you choose to include when you submit a tip, including optional contact details and the tip content itself.
• Newsletter: your email address when you subscribe, plus confirmation of opt-in. You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in every newsletter or by writing to privacy@thefloridapress.com.
• Letters and obituaries: name and message body when you submit a letter to the editor or an obituary. We treat the name and message as content you intend to publish; do not include private information you don't want public.
• Polls: we record your vote and a hashed identifier used only to prevent duplicate voting on the same poll. Votes are anonymous and cannot be linked back to you.
• Error reports: the article you are reporting on and any message you include.

2.2 Information collected automatically

• Standard server logs: IP address, user-agent string, referring URL, request timestamp, and the page or resource requested.
• Analytics: we use Google Analytics 4 to understand aggregate Site usage. This includes page views, time on page, device type, approximate geographic location (city level), and traffic source. IP addresses are truncated by Google before storage.
• Theme preference: if you switch the Site between light and dark themes, we store your preference in your browser's localStorage. This never leaves your device.
• Weather location preference: if you change the weather widget's city, we store that choice in your browser's localStorage. It never leaves your device.

3. Cookies and similar technologies

A “cookie” is a small text file stored by your browser. We and our service providers use cookies and similar storage (includinglocalStorage) for the following purposes:

• Strictly necessary: session integrity, anti-CSRF tokens, and theme/weather preference. Without these, parts of the Site will not function correctly.
• Analytics: Google Analytics 4 sets cookies (e.g. _ga, _ga_*) used to distinguish unique browsers and measure aggregate usage. See Google's privacy policy and opt-out add-on.
• Advertising (if enabled): if we display advertising through Google AdSense, AdSense and its measurement partners may set cookies to serve and measure ads. AdSense uses cookies including __gads, __gpi, and similar identifiers. See Google's advertising privacy policy and the controls at adssettings.google.com.

You can block or delete cookies through your browser settings. Doing so may break parts of the Site.

4. Third-party service providers

We rely on a small number of vendors to operate the Site. Each receives only the personal information needed for its specific function:

• Vercel Inc. (United States) — hosts the Site and processes inbound HTTP requests, including IP address and user-agent strings, for the duration of each request and short server logs.
• Supabase Inc. (United States) — stores form submissions, newsletter subscribers, poll votes, error reports, and editorial content.
• Resend Inc. (United States) — transactional email delivery for contact-form replies, newsletter confirmations, and tip acknowledgements.
• Google LLC (United States; data may be transferred to other regions) — Google Analytics 4 for aggregate Site analytics, and Google AdSense for advertising where enabled.

5. How we use information

• To respond to your enquiries, tips, letters, and error reports.
• To deliver the newsletter you subscribed to and to confirm your opt-in.
• To prevent duplicate poll voting and spam form submissions.
• To measure aggregate Site usage and improve the editorial product.
• To serve and measure advertising (where AdSense is enabled).
• To detect and prevent abuse, fraud, and security incidents.
• To comply with our legal obligations, respond to lawful requests, and enforce our terms of service.

We do not sell your personal information. Under the CCPA/CPRA, the term “sale” can include certain advertising-related disclosures of identifiers; if Google AdSense is enabled, advertising identifiers may be shared with Google's advertising network for the purpose of serving and measuring ads. California residents may opt out of this sharing using the methods described in section 8 below.

6. How we share information

We share personal information only:

• with our service providers listed in section 4, under contract and only for the purposes described above;
• with advertising partners as described in section 3, where AdSense is enabled;
• in response to lawful requests by government authorities, court orders, or to enforce our terms of service;
• in connection with a sale, merger, or acquisition of the business — in which case successor entities are bound by this policy.

7. Retention

• Server logs: typically retained by our hosting provider for up to 30 days for security and debugging.
• Contact and tip submissions: retained for as long as necessary to handle the underlying enquiry, then archived for up to two years before deletion.
• Newsletter: retained until you unsubscribe, plus a brief suppression record to honour your unsubscribe.
• Poll votes: retained in anonymised form indefinitely.
• Analytics: Google Analytics 4 retention is set to 14 months.

8. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:

• Know what personal information we have about you and how we use it (CCPA/CPRA, and similar laws in Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Utah, and a growing list of other states);
• Correct inaccurate personal information;
• Delete your personal information, subject to legal exceptions;
• Opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising;
• Limit the use of sensitive personal information (we do not knowingly collect this category);
• Non-discrimination for exercising any of the above rights.

California residents can also use the Global Privacy Control signal in their browser to opt out of sharing. We honour valid GPC signals where required by law.

To exercise any of these rights, write to privacy@thefloridapress.com. We may need to verify your identity before we act on your request, and we will respond within the time periods required by applicable law (45 days under the CCPA/CPRA, extendable by 45 days where necessary).

9. Security

We use industry-standard protections to safeguard personal information, including encrypted transport (HTTPS), strict server-side access controls, authenticated database connections, and regular security review of our vendors. No system on the public internet is perfectly secure, however, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

10. Children

The Site is not directed at children under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe we have collected such information, contact privacy@thefloridapress.com and we will delete it.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. We will post the new version on this page with an updated “Last updated” date. Material changes will be highlighted, and where required by law we will obtain your renewed consent.

12. Contact

For any privacy-related question or to exercise the rights above, write to privacy@thefloridapress.com or to the mailing address in section 1.